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An adult-film performer has tested positive for HIV at a Sherman Oaks clinic frequented by those in the porn industry, according to clinic staff.

"We do have a confirmed adult-industry performer who tested positive for HIV. We are quarantining and testing all exposed partners to the individual who tested positive for HIV," said Jennifer Miller, HIV/STD counselor at the AIM clinic in Sherman Oaks, where the person was tested.

Miller would not say the gender of the person, what companies he or she worked for, when the person was tested or whether AIM had notified state and county health officials.

"Weíre doing what we can to notify the individuals involved," Miller said.

[Updated at 2:30 p.m.: The positive HIV test is the first reported since last year when an adult-film actress, who industry officials said had worked rarely, was infected with the virus. No one else in the industry was infected as a result.

It was unclear immediately how far reaching the implications were in the most recent case.

An outbreak among performers in 2004 occurred when an HIV-positive male porn star, Darren James, infected three female performers with whom he'd filmed sex scenes. James, who had recently worked outside the U.S., was not aware of his positive status at the time he performed.

Dozens of performers who had contact with James and the three women needed additional testing, shutting down production for a month in the spring of 2004.

The case announced Tuesday may fuel the continuing controversy over whether the industry does enough to protect performers.

Much of the testing for sexually transmitted diseases and HIV is done at the AIM clinic.

Clinic officials, together with porn industry leaders, have long promoted regular testing of porn performers for sexually transmitted diseases an an effective way to prevent the spread of disease.

But Los Angeles County public health officials and state occupational health officials say the widespread lack of condom use on porn sets puts performers at risk for contracting HIV and other diseases.

State officials are considering strengthening rules requiring condom use in adult movies filmed in California. The next meeting on the issue is scheduled for Oct. 25 in Oakland.

Although state officials maintain condoms already are required under workplace rules concerning the transmission of bodily fluids, they are rarely used in straight porn films because producers say they depress sales.]

I'm really kinda surprised that OSHA hasn't gotten involved in adult films. They make rules for just about every other kind of occupation to protect workers. I'm not saying they should--just surprised they haven't.

I'm really kinda surprised that OSHA hasn't gotten involved in adult films. They make rules for just about every other kind of occupation to protect workers. I'm not saying they should--just surprised they haven't.

Ted dear i thought you were the Internet king!This started happening this summer and they decided to pick on Larry Flynt first because of his celebrity and they want to attract publicity to the problem of workplace dangers due to bareback sex.

I don't think that's accurate. The pay per scene, at least from some studios, is higher and then they test them using the same standard used for straight porn. Yes, it's a risk but everyone knows it going into it.

Stuff like Treasure Island and machofucker though perhaps they're all HIV+

Stuff like Treasure Island and machofucker though perhaps they're all HIV+

Machofucker! Oh yeah, you bets.

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"I have tried hard--but life is difficult, and I am a very useless person. I can hardly be said to have an independent existence. I was just a screw or a cog in the great machine I called life, and when I dropped out of it I found I was of no use anywhere else."

Granny60, I think by quarantine they mean they're not letting people shoot films until they know who has it and who doesn't and how it was transmitted and all that. Its not like a regular quarantine where they're locking people in their houses and stuff. They're just stopping the sex.

odyssey is correct -- the porn industry in California (meaning the large studios, not amateur stuff) all use the same company and procedures for STD testing (Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation), and when something like this has happened previously they quarantine the infected, as well as any other actor/actress that they've done scenes with for "x" amount of time -- and by quarantine they mean quarantine them from making more films, not place them in some room with padded walls.

The AIM quarantine means production companies are "placing a moratorium on filming any person one or two generations removed from sexual contact with the current patient," according to the statement, meaning individuals who had sex with the person who tested positive as well as their partners.

Oh its unfortunate that people are still being exposed to this crappy virus... it makes me wonder who maybe possibly hiv in the porn industry? This sounds pretty tacky but, I just might find a date after all... sorry for the twisted humor...

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Granny60

Granny60, I think by quarantine they mean they're not letting people shoot films until they know who has it and who doesn't and how it was transmitted and all that. Its not like a regular quarantine where they're locking people in their houses and stuff. They're just stopping the sex.

odyssey

then quarantine is a poor choice of words. they need to put them on leave or furlough. No need to give the Hollier than God Republicans any new ideas.

There is a guy here in Louisville who has done bareback porn for a small porn company. Well, I've seen the DVDs in adult stores, so I don't know how small it is. Anyway, I know for a fact that he has HIV as well as his partner. So, I don't know whether the film makers know that or even care. Maybe everyone in the scene with him are all poz as well. I believe the company is Bacchus Adult Films.

There is a guy here in Louisville who has done bareback porn for a small porn company. Well, I've seen the DVDs in adult stores, so I don't know how small it is. Anyway, I know for a fact that he has HIV as well as his partner. So, I don't know whether the film makers know that or even care. Maybe everyone in the scene with him are all poz as well. I believe the company is Bacchus Adult Films.

How do you know they weren't infected during a date with a gay in a bar who didn't know he was HIV=? It's galling that many of you think adult performers are less safe than the rest of you, many of who were diagnosed with 3 t-cells and had been infected hundreds over a decade.

In fact, I'd wager that the porn industry (seeing as how infections on set are few and far between) are much safer than the average guy at the local watering hole, which includes most of us posting on these forums.

How do you know they weren't infected during a date with a gay in a bar who didn't know he was HIV=? It's galling that many of you think adult performers are less safe than the rest of you, many of who were diagnosed with 3 t-cells and had been infected hundreds over a decade.

In fact, I'd wager that the porn industry (seeing as how infections on set are few and far between) are much safer than the average guy at the local watering hole, which includes most of us posting on these forums.

*I don't know how legit this is, i kinda just pulled it from a site. The story is different from what i remember. please note the actor believes he picked it up on the set and there are some facts left out. also, i haven't looked into the testing practices of pornographic actors but i believe, and probably for no good reason, they are given rapid tests before barebacking if their hiv status is unknown or negative.

Three films have been withdrawn from sale following a Newsnight investigation into the health risks of so-called bareback gay porn - which shows men have unprotected sex. It follows concerns within the gay community that performers are being infected with HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.

Two of the DVDs featured footage from a week-long shoot during which eight British models had sex with each other in multiple combinations without condoms.

Four of those who took part were diagnosed as HIV positive soon after. One of the men told the BBC he was distressed that footage which he believed showed him becoming infected had been put on sale.

In a separate case a British producer, Rufus Ffoulkes, was jailed last week on a child pornography charge for putting a 16-year-old boy in a gay porn film in which he had unprotected sex.

The US company which released the film had refused appeals to stop selling the DVD until it was approached by Newsnight.

Now, Britain's leading bareback film company, Icreme, has told the BBC it has decided to only do films using condoms.

Most heterosexual pornography has never featured condoms. But showing unprotected sex became taboo in gay porn after HIV and Aids emerged in the 1980s.

Yet in the last four years there has been an explosion in the production of bareback films. They now make up about 60% of the gay market.

Some health officials believe this is a sign of a wider complacency in society about the risks of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases which is mirrored in rising statistics for new infections.

Ceri Evans, Senior Sexual Health Adviser at Charing Cross Hospital in London, told Newsnight: "I think that there is a possibility of something being called condom fatigue.

"We have been talking about condoms so long that people are bored or think they know it all. Education in schools is not what it could be, for anybody, for heterosexual but particularly if you are gay."

The rise of bareback porn exasperates many who lived through the 1980s and 1990s. In the US the leading gay porn director Chi Chi Larue has taken a very public stance against bareback films.

"After all the gay community has been through why are we putting people at risk for porn," he says in a new advert aimed at persuading consumers to boycott bareback films.

In Britain the campaign against bareback is being lead by a director called Steven Brewer.

He is inviting both producers and performers to sign up to a new code of practice designed to minimise risk within the gay porn industry.

He told Newsnight: "I just don't want another 18-year-old model crying on my shoulder not sure how to tell his partner or his parents that he is now HIV positive."

Porn studio Treasure Island Media announced last week that it has extended its contract with an HIV-positive actor who specializes in bareback sex and his HIV-negative partner.

Brad McGuire and James Roscoe (pictured from left) are a "long-term, promiscuous, bareback couple," according to a press release posted by The Sword (possibly NSFW). Roscoe is HIV-positive, and McGuire is HIV-negative.

The move comes after a porn actor tested positive for HIV last month, shaking up the industry, based in the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles. The positive test temporarily shut down production in some studios, though none of the performers the actor worked with tested positive for the virus.

Officials at the San Fernando Valley clinic where a porn performer tested HIV-positive last month announced Friday that two rounds of tests showed no other adult film performers connected with the individual had contracted the virus.

The performer tested HIV-positive Oct. 9 at the Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation, or AIM, in Sherman Oaks. The clinic routinely tests performers working in the San Fernando Valley's lucrative adult film industry for sexually transmitted diseases and maintains a database of their results for porn producers.

Once the new HIV case was detected, clinic officials created a quarantine list of performers to test who had worked with the porn performer, referred to in Friday's news release as "Patient Zeta."

Clinic officials released a statement Friday saying they had completed testing of two generations of the patientís partners, "from both personal and professional life," and all tested HIV negative "on two occasions, using multiple testing methods."

"It has been established that Patient Zeta acquired the virus through private, personal activity and there was no transmission of the HIV virus from Patient Zeta to anyone else," according to the release by an attorney for the clinic.

I'm very surprised they've been able to protect the identity of the man or woman. It would seem like people close to the person and the people he/she had sex with would talk. News gets around, so it would seem like even the camera people would know who it was. If they do know and haven't blabbed, good for them.

Brad McGuire and James Roscoe (pictured from left) are a "long-term, promiscuous, bareback couple," according to a press release posted by The Sword (possibly NSFW). Roscoe is HIV-positive, and McGuire is HIV-negative.

Now that's a shocker. This guy must have been in dozens of bareback videos. Is it possible that he's one of those rare immunity cases?

Which leads me to a question - do those who have the HLA B57 gene, which allegedly makes them immune to HIV, will still be tested positive after an exposure?

Porn studio Treasure Island Media announced last week that it has extended its contract with an HIV-positive actor who specializes in bareback sex and his HIV-negative partner.

Brad McGuire and James Roscoe (pictured from left) are a "long-term, promiscuous, bareback couple," according to a press release posted by The Sword (possibly NSFW). Roscoe is HIV-positive, and McGuire is HIV-negative.

The move comes after a porn actor tested positive for HIV last month, shaking up the industry, based in the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles. The positive test temporarily shut down production in some studios, though none of the performers the actor worked with tested positive for the virus.

These guys are a good example that you cannot look at someone and tell they have HIV. I think the HIV poz guy looks healthier than the HIV neg guy.

I have seen that Mcquire in bareback gangbang scenes doing guys with many loads in their bum. How on earth does a guy stay negative. They are all on haart?

some guys are really lucky. I know of a former bugchaser who claims it took him two years. Another barebacker I know us "poz friendly" and claims he still hasn't been infected. There are others who will go to their graves swearing that their risk was minimal/nonexistant. My guess is that we still have a lot to learn about why some people seem so much luckier than others. I would really love to see a study explaining this.

The adult film performer who tested HIV-positive at a San Fernando Valley clinic this fall spoke out for the first time Tuesday, calling for mandatory condom use in porn productions, improved testing for sexually transmitted disease and follow-up care for fellow performers.

Derrick Burts, 24, said he tested HIV-positive in October at the Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation in Sherman Oaks after working in both gay and straight porn films for a few months. He had previously been identified only as Patient Zeta.

Producers of straight porn regularly check performers' test results using a database maintained by the clinic, known as AIM, to clear actors for work.

Burts, who performed in straight films as "Cameron Reid" and gay films as "Derek Chambers," said he was tested at the clinic Oct. 8, then received a panicked call from clinic staff the following afternoon, summoning him to the office.

When he got there, he said, clinic staff told him that he had tested HIV-positive. They wanted to perform a follow-up test and begin notifying performers he had worked with since his last negative test result Sept. 3. Those performers, he was told, would be placed on a quarantine list while they, too, were tested.

Burts said he gave clinic staff the names of about a dozen performers he had worked with in California and Florida in in both gay and straight productions. The list included his girlfriend, who also works in the industry as a performer. He watched as clinic staff began scanning a performer database, notifying those he had named and placing them on a quarantine list.

The clinic has since said that none of the performers on its quarantine list tested positive. Burts confirmed that his girlfriend tested negative.

He said that when he returned to the clinic Oct. 23 to review the second test results, clinic staff told him that they had traced his HIV infection to someone he had performed a scene with whom they described to him as a "known positive."

Although straight porn performers must show negative HIV test results before filming, the gay porn industry does not have the same restrictions, although condom use is typically required.

Burts said he asked who the performer was and clinic staff told him they could not reveal the performer's name or gender due to patient confidentiality.

Clinic officials could not immediately be reached for comment Tuesday night. An attorney for the clinic was traveling outside the United States, according to an e-mail received from him earlier in the day.

Burts says he may have contracted the disease during a gay porn shoot in Florida. He said the performers used condoms during intercourse but not during oral sex.

Contrary to Burts' account of what he was told, clinic officials released a statement last month saying "Patient Zeta acquired the virus through private, personal activity."

"That's completely false," Burts said Tuesday. "There is no possible way. The only person I had sex with in my personal life was my girlfriend."

Before he left the clinic Oct. 23, Burts said clinic staff put him in touch with a doctor affiliated with the clinic and promised to arrange for his follow-up care.

Burts said no one followed up, and he felt neglected.

"AIM promised they would help me set up a doctor and get treatment," he said. "They did none of that."

Burts said AIM staff had warned him not to contact the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, whose officials have been among the clinic's chief critics. In frustration, Burts said he went to an AIDS Healthcare Foundation center in Los Angeles on Nov. 24 and saw a doctor, never identifying himself as Patient Zeta.

Pleased with the care he received at the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Burts contacted the group's leaders last week, identified himself as Patient Zeta and said he wanted to speak out on their behalf and in favor of enforcing mandatory condom use in porn productions. Foundation officials have scheduled a news conference with Burts for 10 a.m. Wednesday.

"AIM likes to state that testing is enough. That's completely false," he said, noting that in the months before he tested positive for HIV, he had also contracted chlamydia, gonorrhea and herpes.

"It's very dangerous," he said of adult film work. "It should be required that you wear a condom on the set."

Burts, who grew up in Whittier and Hemet, graduated from Hemet High School and a hotel management school in Florida and worked as a hotel manager and cruise ship magician before becoming a porn performer for the money. He said he earned $200 to $800 for filming a straight scene and $1,000 to $2,000 for a gay scene.

Looking back, he said he wishes he had known more about the risks of contracting sexually transmitted diseases in the industry.

dude, i just don't like this article. bitter, exploited and revengeful is what comes to mind when i read this. he believes he caught hiv through oral sex and wants mandatory testing enforced because of what happened to him i i am having a hard time believing a porn star does not know how hiv is transmitted and i have a feeling his revelation (outing himself) may come back to harm him in the future. btw, the article has a picture of him.

I agree. It seems that he has blamed an extraordinarily rare (verging on theoretical) risk for HIV infection rather than following Occum's rather long razor in this case. And instead of taking responsibility for his infection (does the notion of a window period really mean nothing?) he calls upon an industry to change.

God, what lengths people will go to in order to claim victim status. seriously.

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"Many people, especially in the gay community, turn to oral sex as a safer alternative in the age of AIDS. And with HIV rates rising, people need to remember that oral sex is safer sex. It's a reasonable alternative."

Hopefully he will come around. It takes time and its probably not easy being in his confused shoes, considering his age, and doing both straight and gay porn (why do porn? why do both straight and gay?), and having so many STDs and now in a sero-discordant relationship with a porn actress, and being publicly disclosed as HIV+.

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ďFrom each, according to his ability; to each, according to his needĒ 1875 K Marx

"I have tried hard--but life is difficult, and I am a very useless person. I can hardly be said to have an independent existence. I was just a screw or a cog in the great machine I called life, and when I dropped out of it I found I was of no use anywhere else."

Oh, and you want another big laugh? I read on a message board (gay, but non-HIV) that Derrick Burts claims that in the porn scene that he believes he was infected from he used a condom for anal sex, and thus was infected via oral sex

Another person on that board says that Derrick had escort ads up months ago offering services a la BB for a surcharge... so non-immaculate of her!

Derrick Burts claims that in the porn scene that he believes he was infected from he used a condom for anal sex, and thus was infected via oral sex

Another person on that board says that Derrick had escort ads up months ago offering services a la BB for a surcharge... so non-immaculate of her!

Ah... she'll be joining us here soon. She meets several qualifiers for AIDSmeds membership.

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"I have tried hard--but life is difficult, and I am a very useless person. I can hardly be said to have an independent existence. I was just a screw or a cog in the great machine I called life, and when I dropped out of it I found I was of no use anywhere else."